Between multi-residence and terroir
Don Javier Soto, a member of the Eco-Huertos (eco-gardens) group, while proudly showing off his garden, recalls: “I have this land here in Catachilla, then I have a small piece of land in the Chapare, in the Cochabamba tropics, and another in Buenavista, in the east. But since I started my agroecological garden here in Catachilla, I don’t have time to be away much. The crops require almost daily care and people are already looking for me to buy my products”.
Several of the people, most of whom are women, make up the Eco-Huertos group, who due to prolonged droughts, with a loss of 80 percent of the crops, migrated to the city and many people lived for years as economic refugees in Spain. They have in common that they perceive life in the countryside as something valuable, beyond the challenges, which is why they have returned. Lidce Vidal shares: “We lived as a family in the city but with our young children we decided to return because we found more quality of life here”. The issue of farming has not ceased to be complex: the need to harvest water and collect rain, move towards drip irrigation, garden on a smaller scale and using semi-shade netting, diversify the varieties of the garden, rescue native seeds with greater resistance to droughts, assimilate ways and techniques to produce and apply organic and natural fertilizers and insecticides, to mention some of the issues.
Roger Maldonado together with Tania Ricaldi from the Centro de Estudios Superiores Universitarios – CESU (Center of University Superior Studies) of the Universidad Mayor de San Simón de Cochabamba accompany the process: “This process did start with projects with the university but for some time now it has been going on its own, fully piloted by the members of Eco-Huertos”.
At the beginning, the plot
The process began in 2015, with a CESU project, with funding from the Swiss Cooperation (COSUDE), seeking to support agro-ecosystemic capacities to increase resilience, both in the municipality of Santivañez and in other areas of the department of Cochabamba. The original project design foresaw entire plots of land as the scale of intervention. Given the climatic emergency situation with prolonged droughts, depletion of aquifers and other climatic events such as frosts and hailstorms, causing massive migration from the countryside to the city and even abroad, it was not possible to start from the hypothesis of the initial project. Under the coordination or direction of CESU and headed by Tania Ricaldi, it was able to twist the university administration’s arm to negotiate with the sponsors a modification of the project’s focus and the actions to support the producer families. The migration of the focus from the plot to the improved orchard, with semi-shade, drip irrigation and mesh fencing to prevent domestic animals from invading the orchard crops, entailed the need to redesign the actions, the research processes and the budget, foreseeing the capacity to invest in these items. Asking Tania Ricaldi about the different moments and forms of readjustments: “From the beginning to this date I believe that we have been able to accommodate the different actions and strategies of research and accompaniment to the families with a flexibility rarely seen to the changing challenges; from plots to gardens, incorporating rainwater harvesting and drip irrigation, as an initiative of the people the rescue of native seeds more resilient, the monthly organization of the agroecological fair in Catachilla, as another of the successes of the participating families; the Muju Wasi Seed House has been another initiative of the group. As a last great adaptation, we have introduced the forestry and fruit tree component, for its benefits in terms of microclimate, foliage production for mulch, its contribution to the family economy and food diversity, to mention some of the many benefits of this approach”.
When asked how it has been possible to accommodate the logical frameworks, the matrixes of goals and indicators, and the paths of effects and impacts, usually straitjackets of the projects, Tania, with an accomplice smile, explains that in her reading the permanent adaptation was easier due to the commitment and decision of the families, the openness of the research team and the back and forth of different groups and sponsoring entities; The Climate Change and Justice Working Group, supported by Misereor in equipping the Muju Wasi, the University of Cordoba / Spain and support from the Italian Cooperation (CEVI) for rainwater harvesting tanks, etc. The list of allies who have supported at different times is long: under the leadership of the CESU of the Universidad Mayor de San Simón (UMSS) and the financing of COSUDE, the Bolivian Catholic University (UCB) of Cochabamba, the Alerta Verde Foundation, the Abril Foundation and the Agrecol Andes Foundation, among others, have been part of the project. Currently there is specific support from the Faculty of Science and Technology through the Technology Transfer Unit, to design simple silos to help reduce the loss of stored crops and design greenhouses to cope with the aggressive frosts of recent years, which have affected crops. She concludes her brief analysis with a parenthesis: “This process, for a long time now, has obeyed the dynamics of the people, beyond any passing project”.
From project to process
Inquiring why, it seems that what in so many project texts can be read as one of its objectives has happened here, although it is very rarely achieved, this transfer of full protagonism to the socio-territorial fabric, has happened. The answer is perhaps to be found in large part in the conceptual approach of mutual nurturing and participatory methodology, the basis of the process from the beginning, where one teaches by learning and learns by teaching. In practice, this means starting, testing, re-adapting, exchanging and understanding everything as a self-learning path. In this way, achievements and progress are perceived first and foremost as the fruit of one’s own and the group’s efforts rather than as an achievement attributed to outside interventions. The pronounced self-determination of the participants, which has increased throughout the process, supports this assessment.
From refuge to meeting between generations
Doña Miguelina says “the garden is my refuge from the adversities of life, nourishing body and spirit”. Lidce Vidal, also with her garden, as well as participating as an evaluator in the process of qualification for the participatory guarantee system, to which almost all the people of Eco-Huertos have applied, and from which they have already obtained their certificate, says in reference to the garden “we see the sacrifice and the love to produce something in the garden [but at the same time it is] a relaxation to be in the garden”. For Doña Mariela Aguilar, the motivation to start her own garden was “that we don’t know how many chemicals they sell us in the market”. Doña Casta Choque and her daughter Celia say: “The garden unites several generations, grandmother, daughter and granddaughter”. For many of the people from Eco-Huertos, the exchanges of experiences and mutual visits with gardeners from Sipe Sipe, Japo and Pasorapa have been crucial moments in advancing their garden process, reflecting collectively on their learning and their socio-natural relationship.
The pandemic corroborated the benefits of the gardens. The exchanges constitute important parts of mutual nurturing and allow for highly motivating dynamics. For Don Javier, it is thanks to these exchanges “that we managed to make the seed walk”.
Positive infections
The mutual nurturing of Lidce and Javier, of Miguelina and Nélida, of Nelly and Mariela, María and Casta, Francisca, Celia, Hilarión, of Sofía, Brayan and Betty has allowed for a considerable socio-environmental resilience, but above all it has allowed for the collective construction of knowledge as freely accessible public goods.
Messages to the Future
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The collage of paths of experience: building community, recovering and redefining common goods, infecting the other, learning route from one’s own experience, acting and protagonism of one’s own history, productive and food sovereignty as a political act, socio-environmental relationship and barter of knowledge for mutual enrichment.
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Authors:
- Jorge Krekeler | jorge.krekeler@posteo.de
Design:
- Gabriela Avendaño
- Ida Peñaranda
Photos:
- UMSS-CESU
- Ida Peñaranda
- Juan Estrada
- Jorge Krekeler
Contact information regarding the documented experience:
- Lidce Vidal Hinojosa – EcoHuertos
- WhatsApp: +591 73977650
- Tania Ricaldi
UMSS – CESU- Email: taniaricaldia@gmail.com
- Facebook: UMSS – CESU
Edition:
april 2023
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